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The United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Energy and Commerce held a March 5th hearing entitled:
Scaling for Growth: Meeting the Demand for Reliable, Affordable Electricity (“Hearing”).
The Subcommittee Chairman (Latta) described the purpose of the Hearing as to discuss:
…the state of our nation’s bulk power system and the opportunities that lie ahead in the next generation economy.
A particular focus of the Hearing were the challenges faced by utilities and grid operators to delivery reliable, affordable electricity to meet the increasing demand for power in the United States.
A memorandum prepared by the Energy and Commerce Committee Majority Staff addressed:
- Growing Electricity Demand.
- Expanding Threats to Reliability.
Additional issues addressed in the Hearing included:
- How to meet the growing demand for power by AI, manufacturing, and electrification.
- How to address reliability risks from the premature retirement of dispatchable electricity generation.
- How to protect ratepayers, particularly residential ones, from unnecessary rate increases.
- How is generation and transmission planning coordinated between utilities, states, and regions to meet demand and reliability challenges.
The witnesses giving testimony at the Hearing included:
- Todd Brickhouse, CEO and General Manager of Basin Electric Power Cooperative.
- Asim Z. Haque, Senior Vice President for Governmental and Member Services, PJM.
- Noel W. Black, Senior VP of Regulatory Affairs, Southern Company.
- Tyler H. Norris, James B. Duke Fellow, Duke University (Minority).
A link to the Hearing information can be found here.
